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my life

for my birthday in may, my son game me a very unique gift. he usually comes up with ideas that always surprise me. mixed cds with very cool tunes on them, some of which i have no idea who composed it or what instruments they’re using. bob marley is usually a big presence on them. techo music sneaks in and classic rock from the 60’s. i’ve received Buddas, plants (ones you don’t smoke), silkscreened t-shirts, beeswax candles, bamboo cutting boards and his own paintings. this year he couldn’t wrap the gift he game me. “Hey Mom. Happy Birthday! I got you your own domain name.” i was confused as i thought i already had a name. i also had this blog thing that was working for me. “great!” i replied and added, “What does that mean?” it means that www.susiedunham.com is my new and very own website. dear son designed the site for me and i’m trying to get the hang of using it instead of this one. so please go visit me at www.susiedunham.com. i hope you won’t be disappointed. it’s pretty neat. we’re still fine tuning it to my liking. “Mom, stop putting widgets on your site.” now, i’ve got somebody to do that for me. i guess.

on april 17th i flew from nashville, tennessee to albany, new york where my sister picked me up. two days later we started a road trip back to nashville.

we’ve never done a road trip alone before. i was excited and sissy was dreading it. one year i flew back to new york and sissy and i took mom to cape cod for a mother’s day weekend. i thought they were both going to kill me. i like to chat, play games, ask questions…they like to look out windows and drive. i was the poster child of a typical back seat driver and was never invited back for another weekend – even though i promised to be good.

this last trip was better. sorta. i’m an outta-bed-and-hit-the-floor-with-a-sing-song-“good morning.” sissy isn’t. i swear she growled at me. i learned to give her space.

there were no arguments over maps because we had Gladys with us; sissy’s new GPS device, which i was familiar with because bossman and i have one for our trips. setting it up was easy and i did double duty with keeping an eye on Gladys and AAA’s triptik which we quickly put aside after deciding that going through Newark, New Jersey wasn’t going to happen and Gladys concurred routing us right into Pennsylvania.

sissy drove the first leg in hours of hard rains. i was trying to find the sixth Predator playoff hockey game on the radio. no luck. when the rains cleared it was my turn to drive. as soon as i took over, the rains started again and my cell phone started dinging with text messages from nashville. sissy read the notes from Bossman and Daughter to me. “At the arena. crazy.” “like a country fair.” sissy didn’t enjoy fielding all the messages and threatened not to answer the phone’s ding any longer.

then it started ringing. daughter was holding it up so i could hear Vince Gill sing the anthem. “Put it on speaker for me.” i yelled to sissy as i drove through buckets of rain and traffic. “No! i don’t know how.” i tried to get her to push the little button on the bottom left and she threatened to just turn it off. i finally grabbed it and did it myself as we argued with each other. meanwhile at the Sommet Center, daughter is holding the phone up into the air and listening to us squabble loudly. she finally turned it off hoping noone around her heard us.

we pulled off the road around 4:30, got a hotel room and i caught the last period of the game in the room while sissy growled at me from the chair in the corner.

we weren’t even halfway yet. only 600 more miles to go.

we lost, but i was more concerned about sissy killing me. i didn’t talk about hockey again. i don’t think…

after arriving in nashville we enjoyed our time together and daughter enjoyed spending time with her auntie. we had to watch a red wing game, as daughter is a wing fan. sissy still hates hockey. even more.

while back in nashville we found out that bossman’s dad was going to need heart surgery in albany, so we cut the visit short and added a passenger, bossman, to the car.

this was not good in oh, so many ways. bossman and sissy both like to drive. a lot. bossman gets carsick in the back seat doing nothing and the front seat if he tries to look at anything other than the road in front of him. i was happy in the back seat reading and reading and reading… i’d try to start a conversation with the two in the front, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. they’d chat amoungst themselves, but never about anything i wanted to talk about. like cows. i love the cows we pass on the road. running cows…baby cows…walking cows…cows in ponds…cows under trees…i just love the cows. i guess they thought cows were boring. i can’t imagine!

so, bossman’s dad had his surgery this past friday. he had a new pacemaker put in and things have been touchy, but it looks like he might be able to go home today or tomorrow. the chance of clots is the biggest worry right now and we’re waiting to hear about an ultrasound that needs to be done on his leg. hopefully, he’ll get the all clear so he can go home and recuperate.

bossman and i are supposed to fly out to tennessee tomorrow evening.

i don’t suppose i’ll see any cows from the air, bossman will sleep the whole way so there won’t be any chatting…but i’ll have my iPod with me and my books. hopefully i’ll be good and won’t sing out loud.

the church was in The Factory in Franklin, utilizing a large room with a concrete floor and ceilings made of wooden beams and galvanized steel.

pews were blue upolstered chairs set up theatre style to the alter/stage.

before the service started the parishoners were drinking coffee from the coffee bar, watching television monitors with either “God” words or the stylin’ young-enough-to -be-my-kid Pastor giving a lesson on child rearing or checking their email on their computer. wi-fi is available.

the ‘choir’ was a band with back-up singers and a lead singer who played guitar. there also was a bass player, keyboard, drums and a sound mixing station at the back of the audience.

the service didn’t scare me, make me feel guilty or make me mad. yet. it did make me think, question and shake my head in ‘i-get-it-moments’, though.

when pastor jamie had us pray in church today, i closed my eyes, bowed my head and listened. when he spoke i heard a man who halted in his prayer as he searched for just the right words, speaking carefully as he asked god to guide us and help us find our talent and use it. i don’t think he was talking about playing the clarinet.

when i was about five years old, which was…oh…fifty years ago, give or take a year… during the winter months up north, my dad would sit in the dining room at a card table each evening and paint. he’d have the oil paints, brushes and canvas set on the table that he was bent over. i could just see over the top of the table to watch him dip the tiny bristles into the pots of paint and lift it over to the white board covered in blue squiggly lines whose spaces held numbers. 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6… to me, it was like painting a puzzle. i loved to watch it all come together night after night. early spring bloomed and so did the pictures daddy painted. they were framed and hung on the wall for all to see and marvel at. after being around for a couple of decades, mom put them into a closet. daddy passed away at 62 and about 15 years after that, mom was going to throw them away. luckily i was home visiting when i discovered them in a pile to hit the curb. now, they hang in my office/library for all to see and marvel at. enjoy.

our granddaughter’s favorite game to play is Pretty Pretty Princess. she loves to request this game when Pappy is around because she knows he can’t say “No” to her. he does add a caveat, though. he gets to chose his color first. so, we all play pretty pretty princess and pappy wears the crown, earrings, necklace, bracelet and ring. in green or blue. never purple or pink.

if any of you have been following my blog concerning the high school friends i’ve been reconnected with, you’ll be interested to know that i heard from Patty. yes, the elusive, quiet one speaks. well, through email, anyway. she was thrilled to read my blogs and emails. but like many of you who are on the computer all day at work, she hesitates to get on the thing in her evenings. the great thing is we’ve connected and will continue to do so in the future. hoping to get together with these ladies and maybe even track down a couple more of our little group. we weren’t the cool kids or the smart kids, or the athletic kids, or the popular girls. we were the goofballs. we were all cute, some were smart, some tried out for cheerleaders and made it – some didn’t, some had boyfriends, some were musical and in plays and all of us were goofy and loved to laugh and make people laugh. now, we’re in our mid-fifties and have been out of high school for almost 38 years. today some of us have had multiple marriages, some have had children, some have grandchildren, some have been ill, some have lost husbands, some have been lost themselves, some are retired and some are thinking about it. the common thread between us is that all of us have memories of being young once and the fun and heartaches we shared at those tender teenaged years. i’m loving having all of these ‘girls’ in my life again. welcome patty. i missed you.